Marine Habitats within bays of the Eyre Peninsula NRM Region Final Report to the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board for the program: Establishing Marine Baselines By David Miller, Grant Westphalen, Ann Marie Jolley and Ben Brayford Department for Environment and Heritage Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board www.environment.sa.gov.au 90437 Benthic Hab A4 and A3 Covers V3.indd 3 12/10/09 4:29:51 PM Marine Habitats within the bays of the Eyre Peninsula NRM Region Final Report to the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board for the program: Establishing Marine Baselines December 2009 Coast and Marine Conservation Branch Department for Environment and Heritage By David Miller, Grant Westphalen, Ann Marie Jolley and Ben Brayford. For further information, please contact: Coast and Marine Conservation Branch Department for Environment and Heritage GPO Box 1047 Adelaide SA 5001 This publication may be cited as: Miller, D. 1, Westphalen, G.2, Jolley, A. M. 1 and Brayford, B. 3. 2009. Marine Habitats within the Sheltered Bays of the Eyre Peninsula NRM Region. Final Report to the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board for the program: Establishing Marine Baselines. Coast and Marine Conservation Branch, Department for Environment and Heritage, Adelaide, SA. 1 Department for Environment and Heritage, Coast and Marine Conservation Branch, Adelaide, SA. 2 Westphalen Consulting, Adelaide SA. 3 SKM Consulting, Perth WA. Acknowledgements: Yvette Eglinton, Victoria Hendry, Henry Rutherford, Dimitri Colella Shane Holland, Dennis Gonzalez, Alison Wright, Amanda Spezialli, Neva Perry, Fab Graziano, Shelley Harrison, Charles Maddison, Andy Burnell, Bryan McDonald and Peter Fairweather . Also, thanks go to Dave Armstrong and other DEH staff, as well as Matt Guidera (Streaky Bay and Sceale Bay Bluewater Charters) for assistance with field work. © Department for Environment and Heritage This work is copyright. 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Table of contents TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................1 1 EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW .........................................................................................................2 2 BACKGROUND ...........................................................................................................................4 2.1 AIMS ......................................................................................................................................6 3 MARINE HABITAT MAPPING AND BROAD SCALE SURVEYS IN THE EYRE PENINSULA NRM REGION ...............................................................................................................7 3.1 MARINE MANAGEMENT REGIONS ...........................................................................................8 3.1.1 Bioregions.........................................................................................................................8 3.1.2 Biounits.............................................................................................................................9 3.1.3 Marine parks...................................................................................................................10 3.2 HABITAT MAPPING ...............................................................................................................11 3.2.1 Fisheries habitat areas ...................................................................................................12 3.2.2 Other marine benthic habitat mapping...........................................................................13 3.2.3 Coastal vegetation mapping ...........................................................................................13 3.2.4 Satellite imagery.............................................................................................................14 3.2.5 Other potential data sources and GIS layers..................................................................14 3.2.6 Aquaculture monitoring..................................................................................................15 3.2.7 Beach profiling ...............................................................................................................16 3.3 REEF SYSTEMS .....................................................................................................................16 3.4 SEAGRASSES ........................................................................................................................17 3.5 SOFT BOTTOM HABITATS ......................................................................................................18 3.6 THREATS TO MARINE SYSTEMS IN THE EP NRM REGION .....................................................19 4 REMOTE SENSING AND MARINE HABITAT MAPPING – DEVELOPMENT OF A STANDARDISED APPROACH .........................................................................................................22 5 BENTHIC HABITAT MAPPING AND GROUND TRUTHING METHODS WITHIN THE EP NRM REGION......................................................................................................................24 5.1 OVERVIEW ...........................................................................................................................24 5.2 DIGITISATION OF AERIAL IMAGERY ......................................................................................24 5.3 VIDEO GROUND TRUTHING ...................................................................................................25 5.4 ACOUSTIC GROUND TRUTHING .............................................................................................25 5.4.1 Classification of habitats/production of maps ................................................................26 5.4.2 Data and map limitations ...............................................................................................29 6 BENTHIC MAPPING OBSERVATIONS................................................................................31 6.1 PROPORTIONAL COVER OF BROADER HABITAT GROUPS........................................................33 6.2 AREAS OF HIGH HABITAT DIVERSITY ....................................................................................41 6.3 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................................43 7 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................45 APPENDIX A - LIST OF BRYARS (2003) FISHERIES HABITAT AREAS (FHA) THAT OCCUR IN THE EP NRM REGION.................................................................................................53 Final Report for the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board– Page 1 1 Executive overview Under the Natural Resources Management (NRM) Act 2004, NRM boundaries include all State waters. Therefore, NRM planning and programming must provide for the ecologically sustainable use of marine environments. Measuring the effects of human activities in marine environments requires the establishment of baseline habitat mapping against which specific threats and condition targets can be measured and assessed. Habitat mapping currently available is at a scale of 1:100,000, which does not provide adequately for the management needs of NRM Boards. The Eyre Peninsula NRM (EPNRM) Board has commenced a program to address this critical knowledge need by engaging the Department for Environment and Heritage (DEH) in a program of broad scale marine habitat mapping at a resolution that is more suited to local management needs. The mapping and underlying GIS data outlined in this report form an invaluable resource for managers within the EP NRM region, providing a critical baseline against which future changes can be measured and include recommendations for future monitoring and research. Detailed spatial mapping of seafloor habitats was conducted across eight large embayments within the EP NRM region. The embayments mapped, each of high economic, social and environmental value to Eyre Peninsula communities, were Denial Bay, Smoky Bay, Streaky Bay, Baird Bay, Venus Bay, Coffin Bay, Franklin Harbor and False Bay. This summary document forms part of a set of information which also includes: - a detailed map book; - an interactive Arc Reader DVD (which will serve as a basis for identifying monitoring and management requirements as well as a driver of basic research and an educational tool); and - an addendum to the report which includes a summary of baseline biodiversity information for specific habitats within the eight bays. The total area mapped in this exercise (~ 1200 km2) is relatively small when compared with the total marine environment encompassed by the EP NRM region (~ 4.15%), but includes high resolution (1:20,000) baseline data on important coast and marine